Ecological Lacrosse Podcast Ep. 4 - High Point Head Coach John Crawley

Jamie Monroe here. I'm excited to introduce this new show called the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. The goal of this podcast is to help coaches of all levels learn to apply modern skill acquisition concepts to their teams in a cutting edge.

but practical way. In this podcast, we will discuss lacrosse in the context of principles of play and through the lens of ecological dynamics and a constraints-led approach. I guarantee adopting an ecological approach to your coaching will not only help you win more games, but it will create the best possible experience for your players, and it will change your life.

How's it going, everybody? Welcome back to the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. Really excited to have High Point Head Coach John Crawley on the show. What's up, John? How you doing, man? All good, man. Always exciting to come on and chat lacrosse. Always learn something when we're chatting back and forth and going through ideas. So, you know, all is good and excited to spend some time.

So great. Well, you're right into the beginnings of preseason. You're preparing for your first season ever as a head coach. Can you talk a little bit about how you have been preparing both team and individual with so many things to cover through using... constraints and this model of this ecological approach as you're sort of trying to prepare? Because it's kind of easy to figure out how to maybe develop skills this way or not, but how do you do it in the whole picture?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that I don't even know where to start. I think the first thing that I would think of is, you know. the people that I hired. You know, Alex Reddy is our defensive coordinator. Pete Dolan is an assistant coach. And Matt Littner is helping me with the offensive stuff. You know, I think that I got a group of guys who are willing.

to maybe look at things a little bit differently than maybe they have in the past. All of us, you know, and all of us as coaches, we're all products of the experiences that we've had, being around other coaches, you know, coaching styles. and different ways of doing things. And, you know, I'm really grateful to have gotten, you know, three guys who are willing to think a little bit differently than they have in the past. I know me thinking back six, seven years.

years when I was at Notre Dame or my first year at Colgate, looking at the stuff that I was doing then to install our offense, for example, being so different than how they are now. I'm thinking of myself as like a 23, 24 year old kid, you know, kind of first time being an offensive coordinator. If my head coach was kind of.

thinking about things in a, in this way, I'm, I'm, I'm not sure how stubborn I would have been towards it because I felt like I had my way. And so I think that where I'd start is, is, you know, I hired really, really.

high-level people who are willing to kind of put everything on the board and say, all right, how can we talk about the ride, the clear, the face-off game, you know, offensively, defensively? How can we... do this in a way where there's some consistency throughout our practice in the way that we are practicing, you know.

with this ecological approach that maybe is a little different than what they're used to. Our practices are anywhere from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. We're not out there for a really long time. We're probably spending a little bit more time. you know, in the film room, both team and positionally.

make sure that, you know, we're assessing problem solving and decision making and the drills that we're doing to make them look the way that we want to play. And then while we're out at practice, we're kind of just out there practicing, you know. More of me talking at practice is kind of explaining the constraints of a drill or where the goals go or whatever it may be and trying to keep it as high tempo.

as we can to make some, to create some chaos, to create some ugliness in the way that we practice, which, you know, again, if I'm thinking back to myself as a 24-year-old kid and I'm watching our practices now, you know, I may have been like, what are we doing? We look completely disorganized. And, you know, I, so I, where I would start is, is that, you know, I've got, I've got a coaching staff who's willing to do that and, and willing to think about things and, and make sure that.

that we're kind of speaking the same language all over the field. So one of the big advantages, I think, of a constraints-led approach is you're naturally working on a lot of different things at the same time. You know, you're working on riding and clearing, working on offense and defense. You're working on man up and man down all the same time, as opposed to just focusing on one thing at a time, which obviously.

you know is so huge because you just don't have time and we already we all know that you know even division one programs that have you know 132 practice days officially in the year and 20 hour weeks and all that stuff you just run out of time

What are some specific ways that you sort of let's just take writing and clearing? You know, how do you what are some constraints that you use to start for the building blocks? You know, rather than just doing like overpasses, I mean, are you adding riders into it and giving different looks of the different basic things that you're going to see and or that you want to do? Yeah, no, it's in everything that we do.

For riding and clearing, I don't think we spoke about a ride in a clear before there was like three days of us doing different versions of keep away where the offensive guys are the... basically the defenders and the defensive guys are the, you know.

people with the ball and, you know, so putting, putting them in different areas of the field, putting different, you know, sidelines and lines, those kinds of things whether it be, you know, the space between the midfield and the restraining line and, and, and from sideline to sideline.

You put five defenders out there. You put four riders out there as offensive players, but really riding. And, you know, you do a six to eight minute drill of like, all right, how many touches can we get in 20 seconds? There's a shot clock on. And as, you know, as that shot clock goes beneath five seconds, flipping the field to the other side and starting a rep right over there. And, you know, so.

just a game like keep away you can teach some of the details at which you want to have in writing and clearing so for example off the ride At the end of the day, really high-level riding teams approach the ball really well, and they exit off of their first assignment to their next assignment really well. It's something that...

You know, I felt like I learned a lot from Kevin Corrigan in my year at Notre Dame. And, you know, you think about the, you know, the Cavanaugh's in their ride. They're, you know, it's not overcooking a structure. those guys work really hard to approach the ball and to exit the ball and to try to make a play. So for our riding guys, it's like, all right, we're going to think about, you know, our approaches and our exits.

when we're the four guys who are on defense essentially riding. And then defensively, we talk about keeping our feet moving through the ball as best we can. Another thing that I took from Notre Dame using the big turn, I think a lot of people. tend to use that in clearing and, you know, essentially just running through the ball and running through a little bit of pressure. And then making sure that in the clear, another important part for us is making sure if you're, if you're comfortable.

Let's move the ball as fast as we possibly can. But if you're uncomfortable and there's somebody all over your hands. go get comfortable before you make your next play. I can't tell you, you know, how many times, you know, you fail a clear simply because a guy's trying to like make a pass, you know, under pressure. And, you know.

I think I think the old me would have been like, all right, like we need to fix the clear or we need to fix the spots that we're in or all this stuff. And now, you know, I think after going down this this path of of of learning and coaching, it's like.

all right, well, let's just think about the fundamental of keeping our feet moving while we pass the ball, while we catch the ball. And, you know, let's get comfortable so that way we can make passes that we're comfortable making, right? And I think that, you know. When you look at valuing the ball, whether it's offensively or in the clear.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know what a percentage would be like, but I'd be hard pressed to think a higher percentage of the times you turn the ball over is because you're incapable of making the pass. It's more of. Are you making the decision to pass at the right time under the right circumstances? And that's where kind of the ecological approach.

tends to show itself more consistently um because you are doing it with pressure right away you know our first drill in practice is you know is keep away and and those defenders need to come into practice with their sticks warm and prepared. So that way we can get right into the things that we want to do. So, you know, I think that on the, on the bare bones basis, it's like, you know, playing games like keep away. We do have some different.

types of little you know three on two uh uh six on five type stuff that we that we build to in you know more our clearing spots but more than anything it's clearing can you value the ball can you run through pass or can you run through catches and make sure you're moving your feet when you pass? And riders, can we approach the ball to a solid strike zone and can we exit to our next assignment? So if you're focused on those fundamentals, it's less about the actual way of catching and throwing.

and where you space. How about the element of dodging? You know, do you have some constraints where you're, I mean, you're talking about running through the ball and that's true, but there's times when you just got to beat somebody and you got to almost use deception the same way that, you know. Someone's approaching you and you wind up for a long pass. There's better chance you're going to get somebody to.

overplay you in some way than if you just show dodge. Are you working on dodging within your keepaways where you're going to say, listen, you're going to dodge an approach and you have to make a pass off of a dodge? Are you figuring out ways to get your... defenseman to be able to attack pressure and make a play. Because I think a lot of times the reason why clears fail is nobody dodges.

Sure. You know, you look at the reason why it's hard to ride the very best teams in the country is they just run right by you and then it's over. Right. And so developing that seems to be such an important. part of it and are there some constraints that you use in in these keep away games or in your in your overall to develop

Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think that where we start with it is, can we move the ball fast enough so that way the four can't cover the five? That's where we start. But then we'll go into like, all right, you have to, there has to be at least one shallow cut.

um before you're moving the ball so now all of a sudden you are forced with all right somebody having to clear space for you you have to kind of you know see where the space that they just vacated is and you need to you know maybe create an edge by you know showing that you're going one way and go to the other. And then once that shallow cut's done, you can move the ball.

And then the next guy goes as well. So, you know, little little things like that are all over the place. I don't necessarily I think that obviously this is a part of the ecological approach is I don't necessarily. teach our defensemen how to do that. It's more of, all right, you guys have to complete a shallow cut. So you have to figure out how to do that. And if after, you know.

the first two days you recognize that like, if you leave your stick on your inside hand with a rider there and you try to move it with that same hand, like. if after two days you're not recognizing that you might have to put that stick in your left hand to move the ball under pressure right like

then we're not learning from our mistakes, right? And then we're not problem solving. So more of it is like, let's not be afraid to fail in some of these situations as long as it's giving us the best probability of... of of completing a task and i think that specifically for defensive players for canadian players

Even Americans now growing up, I feel like, you know, two handed players is something that is becoming a little bit of a lost art. And, you know, I think that when you get put into some of these scenarios or environments where there's someone on your inside hand and you have. to figure out a way to get it off.

Maybe you have to do that. And then maybe you have to like start to experiment with it. It doesn't have to be something you do every time, but it is a solution to the problem. So, you know, like little things like that, that we talk about a ton and that we watch on film. You know, we watch reps of TV. keep away on film. All right. What worked here? What did we like here? Why was this not working? You know, I think I'm sure that you've, you've run into this when you play keep away sometimes.

at the space, people stop using the whole space and they use half the space and it's like, all right, that's going to be, we can do that.

if you guys can handle the ball at that rate uh to be able to make decisions that quickly or if we spread out a little bit don't allow one to play two now we're able to make those passes under a little less pressure so little things like that that that are all a part of the learning process that which is why I think we try to watch some film on these drills is like what are the skills that are that are that are emerging in these drills and how can we teach these guys that

Making a mistake is okay in practice, but if we're making the same mistake on day one that we are on 35, then I don't know if as coaches we're doing our job in showing them what's the highest probability of some of these solutions.

What are some other constraints that you're using in your key points? We'll say maybe you have to set a pick. We will maybe set, you know. I don't know, once every two passes, we will say you have to use your offhand, have to find a way to use your offhand. We'll say you have to change hands. We will say.

Like you have to catch and split or something and then just split. So sometimes you have to like, you know, push one side to then create space for your other side. We will throw a rogue defender in who can go. So if we're doing it on two boxes.

we'll throw like a rogue Poland who can kind of just go wherever he wants and create double teams, you know, and, and, and force guys to become better outlets. You know, we, we, Just so people know what you're talking about is the great clearing drill because you can play a little two-on-one or three-on-two in one area on one side of the field and then have enough spacing that you can throw an overpass.

to another two on one or three on two or something on the other side of the field. So it hammers out a quick little, you have a little shot clock on one side, probably eight seconds on one side. You got to clear to the other side. There's just enough space to be able to rope it. And then you're saying you add a defender into that. So it might be a three on three on one side to be able to throw to a three on two on the other or something.

Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of, again, just throwing different things. The one that we do most specifically for clearing is five on fours with the entire, so basically from the midline to the restraining box and the wing lines. And then sometimes we just add more and more people, make it really uncomfortable.

comfortable, force them to really have to clear space, force them to really have to communicate about finding the space and moving the ball faster. So, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's just kind of also for us as coaches having fun with it and trying to.

find some ways to get them to fail a couple of times if there are certain things that we're struggling with when we are actually scrimmaging and, you know, finding some consistencies in that. Have you figured out some constraints on how to like step people over? Yeah, they actually did that on their own, which was pretty cool. There's a drill that we do that's a little bit different than that, but essentially we will have...

Well, we could do it. We do it in keep away too. So essentially if you have a five on four on one side of the field between the midfield line and the restraining box, and then you have another one waiting to go. We may do something where it's a 20 second clock, but under five, you're allowed to run it over if you have pressure, but somebody has to come back and step on sides. And that completely happened because.

one kid saw that another kid was in a double team and told him you're good. He stepped over. He said, you're good. You're good. You're good. And he, the other kid ran over and I was like, I don't know if we said that. And I think another one of the coaches looked at me like ready to blow the whistle.

And I was like, no, I think that's a pretty good solution. So then it just has started to become one of those things where all of a sudden they are starting to think creatively about how to win the drill, how to get more touches than another team, how to value the ball.

And at the end of the day, that's the goal, right? It's like, you know, we give them a couple tools and give them, you know, that we want to get comfortable. All right. Sometimes I got to run over the line. So somebody else has to get back on sides. And.

It's actually been pretty cool to see that when we do it with goals. And so, you know, sometimes we'll bring the goals up to the restraining boxes and we'll have those five on fours result in, you know, a five on four on offense to score. And some of those are.

pretty cool because sometimes the goalie will come out and essentially show a 10 man because everybody's covered so on the on the on the riding and clearing side of the field if this is making sense you know a defenseman has a ton of pressure and then he just runs over and another guy steps on and now it's creating a an advantage um from another side of the field and all of a sudden defensively

You have to then get back in the hole and kind of figure out some of these, you know, some of these scramble type situations. So, you know, it's it really it came from them. I remember specifically, I think it was in the fall where, you know.

Someone was running into pressure. Another one of the guys on the other side of the field just told them to go. And we were like, yeah, sure, that works. It'd be kind of cool to be able to figure out a way to have, like, even make the numbers bigger, six on five or seven on six.

And then let people sort of step over and designate, all right, you guys are, you two are minis, but you got you three or attack or whatever, if it's a six on five. And now you've tried to figure out how to, if it's not a match feed. how to figure out a way to run it over and get somebody back or how to stretch somebody over so that you can throw it and try to get people to shift and bump. But these are ways that you're working on the principles of the game without completely spelling it out.

you want to end up having a clearing set, which I'm sure you do. It just makes it so much easier because it's the mystery of onsides, offsides that really screws people up, I think. both coaches and players. It's why there's so many mistakes, you know, like running the box is a thankless job when you're a young assistant and why the running and clearing game can be so tough. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. Yeah.

So interesting. How often would you say that you go into practice with a practice plan of the things that you want to cover, but things change because you see something that... isn't working or is working and you figure out a constraint or some kind of a tweak where you're like this you know that made it that made things work that that you wanted you know you that created the behavior that you were hoping for

um how often is it is is are your practices basically that flexible where you can make adjustments and kind of tweak things on the fly yeah i think within drills that happens almost like all the time I would say like from drill to drill, we try to be, we try to, if let's say we, you know, either didn't explain the drill well enough or we are not doing it well enough.

We're not going to sit on it and continue to do it for another eight minutes. We're not going to ask for more time. We're typically like. pretty quick to get to the next thing. And, um, that's where film comes in, you know, we watch it and then we, we show how it translates, um, you know, to, to the full field when, once, once we are playing, um, you know, maybe the next day before practice, so they can see that. But I would say within drills, it happens.

all the time i know for me offensively um there could be a day that i have something in my head that i want to create the constraints around and all of a sudden they're doing it and i'm looking out i'm like this is not what i really wanted to achieve and then having to get creative and change that. I mean, it happens all the time. I'd probably say this was more maybe like one or two years ago that like...

this is just the first one that comes to my head. Cause I, we run into it all the time, but like, let's say we're playing four by and all of a sudden every single, so. For for viewers or for people who don't know, it's, you know, small sided game, small goal tennis balls. And it's a four on four. But one guy drops in to play to play goalie, for example. And, you know.

maybe that odd man situation is allowing us to not really set purposeful picks because realistically we have an odd man on the other side of the field. Right. So it's like, all right, you'll add a constraint of, Hey, let's actually slow the ball down when it gets to one side and force us to have to play like a two on two. And we're not allowed to go to the goal until.

Until we play that two-on-two, then it's like a jailbreak and then we can start to play. So defensively, you'll say, look, you guys got to play this two-man game like it's two-on-two and play a coverage? Exactly right.

and do that before the – and so for the offensive guys to slow it down a little bit so that way we're not just like – one guy starts to set a pick and – You just throw it across the field to the two-on-one on the backside, and now you're not really working on the pick, so to speak.

Because I think everything for the way that we want to practice, at least for me, is when I'm practice planning, I spend a really long time and we as a full staff spend a really long time is like, all right, what's the intention?

of the drill and then how can we kind of reverse, you know, design, you know, what we want to make the constraints or, or, or make the drill. So that way we're achieving that intention. I think that's really the most important thing, but. We're doing it from chairs and on a whiteboard. And then sometimes you go out on the field and there's something you don't necessarily think of that you're like, oh.

This didn't work. So in those situations, you might have to go instead of the four on three, you go into making it an even situation and you throw a goalie in. And now it's really a four on five. So now you force them to. actually have to play the two-man game on one side or the other because there's not the two-on-one on the back side.

Then, all of a sudden, you watch your offense play, and they're sticking every pick, whether it's big-big or big-little or short-big, and they're not really thinking about how to create an advantage off of the pick. And then, you know, again, I think like two years ago or maybe a year or two ago, I started to do this is, you know, what we would do is if we would force two guys. on the defense to drop their sticks and those would be considered short sticks.

You know, for when you actually translate to six on six and the guys who had their actual sticks in their hands, those were considered polls. So now you can start to recognize, all right, where's the short stick? Where are we creating the mismatch advantage or where are we creating the numbers advantage? with whatever we're trying to do in the two man game. And now it forces them to actually think about, all right, how are we creating this advantage? Where are we creating this advantage? So-

coverage with a long and a short and the fact that they're probably not going to want to switch it, but there's lots of different ways you can kind of go about that. Exactly. And then also recognizing where the short sticks are. You know, I think, again, this was something that two years ago as I was like reviewing. You know, I think, you know, after the season ends, I typically try to watch our practices and see kind of like the flow and, you know.

how things translated to what we did in games. And, you know, there were certain games in the beginnings of years where we were not really utilizing the short sticks as urgently as I thought that we could have. And then I started to look at the practices. I'm like, well, we're not really.

Like we're not showing them where the short sticks are. We're playing four by, but we're not necessarily showing them how to identify it. So I've done multiple things on that, you know, again, drop your sticks. I've done, you know, one person on defense is a different color.

than everybody else. That person is the short stick and we have to try to, you know, basically put that guy in as many situations, whether it be picks towards the ball or picks away from the ball and screens. And how many times can he have to play a different person? and throughout a set.

Little things like that that show up, but everything kind of starting with, all right, what's the intention of that drill and how is it translating to our actual six on six and scrimmage sets? How can we get creative about how to, you know, how to put them? put our players in situations where they have to solve those problems. Do you find that when you're playing with the small nets,

that you have to figure out a way to get more ball pressure to spread them out a little bit so you can have the space to run some of these two main games. Do you play like you have to pressure the ball or you have to play like an arm's length distance or some kind of got to get over a pick or something like that to get a little bit of pressure?

simulate the spacing that's a little bit different with a small net than a bigger net. It doesn't have to be exact, but just enough so that you have space for a pick and roll or a nation's look or even a cut to the middle. No doubt. Yeah. It happens all the time. I think the first time that I tried to do that, I think I put a, uh, like a portable crease, like right.

basically like and and didn't like fold it up i put it the full size and said defensively um you're not allowed in that crease until xyz happens And then I think it was like the third, the second day I tried to do it. I saw guys like tripping over the crease and I was like, all right, well, that's not a great idea. I've got to think about something, something different, you know, so positioning the goal at different points or different, different parts of the fields.

So that way maybe there's a box at the restraining line where it's like, all right, defense, you guys can't go in here until a pick happens or until you guys get switched on to each other or something like that.

We do some other stuff where we'll do, I call it like, you know, a jailbreak constraint. So essentially like, let's say it's a straight two on two on one side of the field. And until we get a matchup change or until we create an advantage with those guys. a two-on-one is allowed in from the backside. So it kind of, you know, shows, first of all, your off-ball players.

you know how to identify when an advantage is going to be created and then force them to not allow one to play two because that's a huge part about like Obviously creating an advantage is a lot of the start of our offense, but then attacking that advantage with good spacing and draw. not letting one play two, drawing and dumping and throwing it to the open guy. Sometimes guys off the ball aren't necessarily anticipating.

very well when an advantage is going to create it and then they're standing next to each other so you know trying to find like different different little things like that that we'll do And sometimes little jailbreak type, whether it be a two-on-one on the backside or a one-on-one on the backside, or it be a slide guy that comes out and then creates the two-on-one.

Those all are like kind of different ways that you kind of bring people out of the middle, at least to at least get some more realistic pressure on your two man game type stuff. Totally. What about how much double teaming do you do? Defensively? Yeah, well, for both sides of the ball. I mean, basically to, you know, let's just say you're playing whatever. I mean, how much do you give your offense the look of doubling picks, staying on doubles and creating that?

that pressure that obviously also teaches your defense how to communicate a double team, staying left and staying right, how to rotate to passes. how to try to rotate, rotate, and recover if it's like a four-on-four. I was just curious. I'm doing a lot of that lately, and I learned that from Coach Wolvogel at Yale when I was an assistant there. We didn't play a very high-pressure defense, but, man, did that guy double-team.

the crap out of the offense every day and it was it's really where i kind of learned about constraints because i'd never really seen that before and this guy pressured the crap out of the offense and it made for the most ugly practices ever And we didn't even play defensively that way, but it made for a really good team defense because everybody really understood how to double, but also how to rotate and recover. But I was just curious how much you do that.

Yeah, we'll do it. So if we're doing offense versus offense four-by, there will be times where I'll say to the defense, hey, if they set a big, big pick, right, so two guys with the regular pulls while the other guys have short sticks. I'll just say, double it.

And the goalie can come out and they can do kind of whatever. So that way they just never are running off of picks, not with their head up. It forces them to have to understand that there are different reads to different coverages that, you know, that, that based on what the defense does. So we'll do some of that. We also actually kind of teach if we're in an end-of-game situation and we want to teach how to double, we will do that. We'll basically just throw an extra defensive guy in.

um and go almost four four on five and say like all right on the second pass We have to organize behind the ball and bump him out to then create a double team. Or if the ball gets below goal line, then we'll send him out. We haven't gotten to many of those situations just yet.

just at this point in the season. It's certainly something that I did while, while the last couple of years at Hopkins at different points in time, just to, just to, just to basically, you know, be prepared for those fourth quarter type situations. You know, stuff like that. Or at least you got to kill a game or get it back, you know. But I also think that double teaming is just such a good way to learn how to re-dodge too. Sure.

you know i mean it's just like maybe one of the best ways to learn how to like get away and re-attack and and you know see it like you said not running blindly straight into doubles Yeah, I think it also teaches you as like the picker. If let's say you say, you know, like I was saying, the constraint is, you know, we're playing four by, but it's, you know, four by plus a goalie.

So four on four plus a goalie, you mean? Four on four plus a goalie. Let's call it that. And we say big, big picks, you know, jump them. It also just forces guys to understand what matchups are a little bit quicker. on them and then what their solution is um because we talk about picks we want to have the same language for like how we kind of talk about picks so we'll talk about the orientation of those picks so

Big, big, big, little, little, big, you know, short, short, whatever it may be. And then we'll talk about what the defense is looking to do or what they're likely to do, what their defensive coverage is, and then what our read is and then how we execute it. So, you know.

ideally we want our guys kind of speaking in the same language there um you know kind of going through those four um things so that way you know in a huddle in the middle of a possession they're able to very quickly say hey uh you know on short short picks they're they're looking to switch everything super early so let's try to slip those or or just give and go when we when we have those um opportunities because that would be a good solution to that

problem um and you know i think sometimes with uh with big big picks especially against some teams uh you know i i maybe i learned this the hard way of being an office coordinator at lehigh um when we're talking about picks behind the goal and and they're looking to you know double those picks at goal line and send the goalie You've got to have your guys prepared for those situations. You've got to have outlet.

in front of the ball so that way the guy doesn't get completely trapped and you know off the ball if you're able to anticipate that happening you know um you can really hurt a team if if if they're doubling those picks and you're ready for it so so yeah we we you know i think it depends on where i've been um to how much i've done that based on based on what you see and all that kind of stuff more recently um i've worked on you know how to break

double type stuff um to work on those end of game situations talk about how to clear through as opposed to go pick or you know stay off the crease and have outlets and not allow them to set up and just move the ball so right right It's a must for preparing for winning a game. You're going to have to do that. I've been using it.

I tried an interesting constraint for double teams. I'm always trying to figure out a way to get more defense when we're playing small net games with no equipment. It's like hard to do. No doubt. We started playing a flag football constraint with it. We're basically.

The offense had to pick. You just took a jersey and put it in their shorts. You could pull the flag. And the defense had to double the pick. And they could just go after you. And it actually kind of evens the playing field a little bit because you can't just... You're not going to be able to dodge through it. They're going to be able to pull your flag. Meanwhile, a good athlete can just get through a double team with two shorties easily. Now it automatically creates...

really good double teams and movement and rotations in a low contact way. And what I started to realize is how much it really teaches. the fundamentals of two-man games. So for example, if you don't set a triple-A pick and create some separation, you're bringing a guy right to it and he's probably going to be able to double your teammate. If you don't, I do allow the Dodgers to reject.

So they can reject the pick and not get their flag pulled. But that means the defender has to not just give up an easy reject and overplay it. Exactly. Meanwhile, if the Dodger doesn't threaten to reject, they're going to get their flag pulled by their own guy in two seconds.

So anyways, I was just sharing like a thing we've been kicking around that's been kind of cool for small net games. Both we've done it both live, you know, with shorties as well as with without equipment. But it's just another way because I like I said, like. learned so much from coach wall logo and so much of it was pressure in double teams and it just developed players

in a way that was obviously good for the end of games, but it just teaches you how to play because it's just, you have to learn how to like not let people dull you and keep your own guy honest and stuff. So. Yeah. Well, you also off the ball have to be able to anticipate, recognize when something happens. Right. I think that. Sometimes that's the toughest thing about a double team. That outlet or the next person who could potentially be that outlet.

recognize the outlet and then rotate, rotate, and ideally recover. And so if the offense, if the defense gets back to neutral, they automatically get awarded points for that. if the defense doesn't double it's a free play it automatically goes back to the offense after a free play so like the defense has to double it if there's a pick

Sometimes I have to say don't slip it just to be able to give the defense a chance to get some doubles. But then after a little while, they can start learning how to slip stuff. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about –

principles of play i i feel like the common denominator between all coaches regardless of whether you have an ecological approach or not there are principles of play that you have to live by whether it's protecting the middle Ball pressure, ball movement, spacing, all of these things you've been referencing all the way through. Sure. What are some of the principles of play that are your most important principles of play on man up?

Regardless of what set you're in, what are the things that are the most important, the most important pieces to having a great man up unit? And then what are some of the constraints that you might use to try to teach those principles in play? whether it be in six you know live man up man down session or whether it be in four by or anything else sure

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think everything ends up coming back to we set some objectives to what we want to do for any possession ever, whether it be man up. four on three, six on six. And these are the things that we probably spend the most time doing and talking about and our guys learning and referencing and watching on film.

And those four objectives are to set our space, create an advantage, attack the advantage, and shoot a score. And so setting our space is starting by not allowing one to play two, having some urgency. in the way that we do that. And, and, and then essentially we're looking to create an advantage and man up the advantage is already created. So the advantages that, that, that we talk about most specifically are slide drawn.

A good pick, a free up, which is a term that I use for a cut or a screen that frees you or someone else up off the ball. Numbers advantage. So let's say a faceoff guy pinching pops the ball forward and he just created a numbers advantage. He would get, you know, a stat of a number sign, essentially. And, you know, a field flip, which is basically the ball crossing the middle of the field. And then a call it a trap, but a TR, which is essentially.

let's stick with the face-off guy. If he goes down, sets a pick, gets his guy stuck on defense for X amount of time, there's an advantage that we've created in every single one of those situations. Then it's how do we attack the advantage? We're trying to keep it as simple as we possibly can. Once an advantage is created, what we want to do is not let one play two on or off the ball as best we can. It's not always perfect. It's actually more than often not.

perfect, especially when you have, you know, hopefully the kind of off ball movement that we have. But we don't want to let one play two. You're either shoot passing or driving. So trying to make as, as, as, as quick decisions as you possibly can. And then, and then you're passing it to the open guy as simple as it could possibly be as those three things is how we attack.

those advantages so when you think about man up um you know i don't want our guys to all of a sudden think, all right, we have to play this man upset perfectly. It's more about like, all right, where's the numbers advantage? How are we not letting one play two? And how are we passing the ball to the open guy? And how are we consistently?

doing that to basically pull the man down unit apart, find open, find the best shot that we possibly can. Because that last objective is to shoot the score. And to me, we try to. like shooting to score is, is making sure that we have really, really good shot selection. And then we're shooting it at the highest probability that the, that the situation in the environment.

um, puts us in. Um, so, um, we, we qualify our shots or, you know, it's like, uh, you know, cold stone creamery, like it, love it, gotta have it. Um, and because at the end of the day, We do kind of talk about shots that we absolutely don't need, but typically we're dropping them into the buckets of like it, love it, and got to have it. If there's a numbers advantage that we have and we're trying to not let one play two, we're trying to pass the ball to the open guy as quickly as we can.

We are trying to turn like it's to love it's as best we can. We're trying to turn love it's to, to, to gotta have it's. And we really talk about how fast we can move the ball and how good of a shot that we can get. in that, in, in that set. So we just kind of consistently talk about, first of all, we, with man up, we'll, we'll, we'll, you know.

If we're doing a man up segment and let's say we're just working on three on two on one side, maybe we're doing like a scrape type drill where we'll change up the defensive pressure. or maybe the defensive pressure after one pass. Maybe there's an action for us offensively that we want to do on the extra man, whether it be a shallow cut, you know, whether it be an exchange off the ball. And we'll basically work on those.

But we'll do that in a three-on-two setting. We'll do that in a three-on-two arc type drill. We'll do that on the other side, three-on-two. We'll do that with a four-on-three on one side of the goal where the inside guy is now a part of it. Do it as a three on two that, you know, almost like a three on two on two sides of the field where.

We have to so it's basically a six on four, but we need to force a rotation across the Z line from the defensive unit before we're able to flip the field offensively. So like little things like that where we'll try to just kind of.

toy with the three-on-two type situations but at the end of the day um what we're trying to do on extra man is is teach them to where that advantage is and how to kind of manipulate where the D guys are standing with your eyes, with your passing, you know, with your feet. and try to find that, you know, turn that like it to love it, turn that love it to gotta have it. And that's where kind of like that poise comes in.

And, you know, I think you watch Notre Dame's extra man unit from last year, who was just excellent. They had like the perfect balance of being aggressive, but also being poised. They didn't do anything too crazy. They shifted a little bit. They basically played out of a 3-3. But, you know, if somebody had a gotta have it or a love it type shot, they shot it. And when they felt that they can find something better.

you watched them try to find something better and i think that teaching your guys about uh valuing the ball and shooting to score and like those being probably the most important things and the things that we talk about the most all of a sudden combined with the objectives that we have you try to kind of

of link them back and forth and put them in environments where they have to value the ball, where they have to find that best shot that they possibly can. I love that. All of those are really cool. I love the idea of making a guy rotate across the Z line. I've been thinking about that. I think it's really cool because it means basically you're intentionally saying, like, I'm going to make you rotate. And if I don't make you rotate and I score it, okay, but the defense is going to rotate that.

Yeah. And sometimes like a five seconds later to happen right away. Or how do you, how do you make that, that drill flow? Or do you not worry about it flowing so much? You're just saying, all right. Yeah, so I think the first time we did it, it's actually now a pregame drill for us. It's actually one of our pregame warmup drills. But, you know, the first time that we did it, we were going three on two on one side. And then the next.

ball would come into a six on four and again that other side was not live until we until you know somebody rotated across or something and then what we found was it was a little it was just a little confusing throwing the ball in in two different spots and the flow didn't like

it just didn't feel good. So we would just throw it into one side for two and a half, three minutes, and then we'd flip it and go three, three minutes to the other side. And, um, defensively, you know, so we'll put a constraint on the shot clock where the two D guys on the other side of the field are counting down from five. let's say and we you know these three offensive guys have to force that rotation under five or the d wins the rep

And now you're showing your offensive guys that you have to do it with urgency. You don't have all day to create this three-on-two. man up, technically you could, but the more that you can force them to rotate, the more that you pull them apart, the better shots you'll be able to find. So we've done it in a couple of different ways. We've done another one that we, another drill that we harped on a ton.

in the preseason that i ended up really liking was a drill where we'd put an offensive guy at x and top center and then two offensive guys on the wings and then we'd put the defense in a box and Let's say the ball started from X and the ball gets passed into the right wing and immediately it's just a two on one on that corner.

So there are still three defensive players who are standing still. They just can't move. They can check, but they can't move their feet. So you still have the spacing constraint. So that way it's not just like an open field two-on-one. But the only the only three people that are alive are the you know, the the righty wing guy and the top center guy and then the defender who's in that corner. And if the defender and so the three defensive guys in the box who are not in.

can throw their stick out in the way or throw their stick in a lane, but they're counting down from five. And we've got to convert to a shot and that two on one in five seconds. And then you build that up to three on two. So same idea. You pass the ball in from X.

Again, you know, same format, pass the ball in from X to the right wing. And now it's a three on two from the three guys who are high and the two D guys who are on the in those two top spots in the box. And again, the two guys who are out. counting down from five seconds and you're forcing your guys to have to as urgently as they possibly can with their body language, with their, with their.

with their posture to create, you know, to kind of draw the defense, not let them scream. Are the two guys live in this scenario? Yeah. They're scraping, but you don't get another rotation. Exactly. An up-center guy can look it off and get the shot or bring a guy over and draw and dump it, but it's happening quick.

Exactly. But it happens so quick that like, you know, I think sometimes I've done like three on two drills like that. I've actually done them, you know, in like the, you know, back the. I've backed the goal up to the women's crease and say, all right, offensively, we can't step inside the arc. But... And I think what this drill ended up creating is there's still the guy on that base. So that guy on the far side wing, let's say, when the ball is top center.

And we get a rotation in. There's still the guy on the far side base. So the shooter has to catch the ball moving into the ball to create a lane to shoot. So it just kind of created some different things. And I think like at the end of the day, again, it's not letting one. play two.

It's passing the ball to the open guy, and it's making those split-second decisions to either drive, pass, or shoot. That's how we're attacking the advantages. So, again, it's just trying to keep it. The time constraint is so huge in these particular ones, right? I mean, that's.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then and then, you know, as we add different actions in to our extra man, maybe we say, all right, we have to have a shallow cut instead of five seconds at seven seconds, you know. So, you know, we can always kind of mess with it a little bit. Yeah. Hey, you're talking about Notre Dame's men. They were incredible at wall passes. You got any good wall pass constraints? Good question. Sometimes we will throw, you know, again, do like almost like a four on three.

I don't know if I could explain this well for somebody listening, but a four on three. So a three on two on the side. Yep. Cones down the middle. Yep. Or sorry. Cones to like.

basically one pipe there's a little bit of space and um and so what we will do we don't necessarily do it because of wall passes more of what we do is to work on that inside guy making a fast decision, whether it's to shoot or to pass, and showing the guys on the perimeter how to drag guys out of the way to create an inside shot.

So similar, I brought it up earlier, kind of a jailbreak situation. So a three on two on the side, you throw a crease guy in, and then you put an other defenseman who's on the opposite side of the cones, who's out of the drill. until the ball is intended for the inside. So.

You create the three on two, and depending on what hand the inside guy is, there's always going to be that pressure coming from the other side if he gets the ball. So sometimes it creates for the wall pass. Other times he's able to catch and just finish it. Um, and get a shot off, but it may depend on his hand. So we'll do that. And then we'll, we'll also like flip it, um, for like the top center or like the, uh, three guys on the archive. Um, and same thing guy, basically.

being held until the ball is intended there which is kind of the situation that ends up happening for the most part um man is you know there's a guy from the back side whenever the ball goes in somebody's collapsing to you So again, we try to use that jailbreak constraint a decent amount. I do think that it ends up showing up a lot more when you're specifically attacking advantages because... You know, usually you know how a defense is rotating, but, you know, sometimes.

Ball's in a dangerous area. Somebody just comes to you and you don't necessarily know where he's coming from. And you have to be able to make some of those quicker decisions and get some of those shots off a little bit faster. um so you know we'll do that in in in you know it's both settled stuff we'll do it in those three on two or those it's really a four on three jailbreak one-on-one but um we've been doing a um an outside arc it's like doing three on two outside the arc

Yep. But then you add a crease guy into a high crease area. So he's constrained to a space. And then you add another defender in. And so basically you've got sort of this three-man rotation. or they got to go play the ball. Yep. The backside guy has to get into that crease area and it allows you to learn how to get in and out. And I might be like, all right, you got to get it in and out before you can, before the inside guy can score, he's got to get it in and kick it out.

Exactly. That would be a way to more work on the wall. But again, sometimes I'll just put that extra D guy at the bottom.

but put that extra D guy, maybe a foot on the crease. And then whenever the ball comes to the, like whenever the ball is intended, that is when you're released so it forces them to have pretty good body language be prepared to make that like rotation up and now all of a sudden it's back to a four it's into a four on three um so little little little things like that like holding that holding that last defender

I think ends up making some more realistic type crease play, you know, whether it be settled stuff or, or man to man. Yeah, totally. And just getting the ball inside. I mean, it requires. It does require a certain amount of poise and deception to be able to pop a ball in there. And so, yeah, I think it's one of those, it's kind of a principle of play.

Against a five-man, it's open in there. If you don't get it in there, it's like playing, you know, five-on-five. It's also a principal play and something that we – talk about a lot is is chemistry like you watch that notre dain team and you're like wow look at the chemistry that they have and it's like all right how do you how do you actually define chemistry um and what we talk about is is the it's the combination of communication

anticipation, knowing yourself and knowing your personnel. So the thing that I also think it's working on is the anticipation of the inside guy being open. And I think one of the most underrated skills in extra man, and this is something that, you know, I learned when I was as a player from Bobby Benson.

You know how you need to have your head on a swivel and understand where they're coming out to you and where who is going to be open two passes away. And so what it does, you know, let's say you have a righty inside guy that lefty. on the high wing, who's a shooter, you know, should be taking a peek inside. Basically, like the same way you talk about defensively, we want to have our head on a swivel.

There's no difference for the offensive guys, especially in odd man situations. And the better that you can anticipate. where they're going to be rotating from, who's going to be open in a pass, who's going to be open in two passes. Typically, that can leak into what a common person would be like, wow, just a ton of chemistry from that group.

Right. And your ability to anticipate what's going to happen is a skill like that is something that you need to learn how to do. You need to learn how to do it defensively. You need to learn how to do it offensively. You need to learn how to do it in transition.

offense, in extra man offense, in settled offense. You need to learn to watch the ball. So many kids are literally just watching the ball and their whole life they've learned how to figure it out once they get it because they're athletic enough to do that. That chemistry doesn't happen without that vision or scanning that you're talking about. Absolutely. One cool constraint is saying you have to score off a quick stick assist. Sure.

Because that forces you. You literally are going to have to scan to be able to see that. But I'd be interested if you have any other thoughts that allow you to sort of figure out how to... get your guys to learn how to scan and see the field when they don't have the ball because that it's like literally one of the most important parts of the game yeah i mean i i think it showed like when you're when you're doing drills that are constantly live i think

If you don't learn to scan, you're just going to turn the ball over all day. And I think that so it ends up being a skill that emerges, I think, in a lot of what we do, because if you're doing odd man type stuff, if you're changing up the pressures, if you're changing up the speed of rotations, you're telling, you know.

Maybe the defense to scrape, you know, for this five minutes or for the first four minutes. And then for the next four minutes, you're saying like, you know, scrape once and then rotate heavily. I think that if you. don't anticipate all of a sudden you're getting, you know, you're getting

Yeah, you're getting a stick in your chest and you're turning the ball over. So ideally, more than anything, it's like it should be a part of everything that we do. And it should be a part of almost every single drill is your ability to kind of.

understand the space and and something that I think offensive guys are tasked with learning faster than defensive guys but defensive guys have to learn it for the clear as well they have to learn it for transition offense you know I mean how many times have you

you know, done a three on two drill where a defenseman is just creeping into space and creeping to the back pipe. All of a sudden he catches the ball and there's a stick in his chest and he turns the ball over. And it's like, you've got to keep this you got to keep the space your stick work allows you know and and that's a part of anticipation right like you need to take the space no doubt but if you

If you take the space and your stick work does not allow you to move the ball in the short amount of time because you took the space, all of a sudden you're turning the ball over. So that's something that we talk about. We talk about all the time. It's like, hey. You know, we do – Facing is scanning basically.

yeah spacing is is recognizing you know what space to take what space not to take um because of your like knowing yourself because of how you know what your skills are and i think sometimes kids maybe have a little bit more ego and think a little bit higher of their skills than maybe they really are. And I think when you can just like leave the ego at the door and say like, my left hand is not as good and I'm on this side of the field, I may need an extra half a second.

to make this next read or if i want to keep it in my right hand i certainly can't be standing in the same spot that i would be with my left hand because of where the rotation is coming from so that that ends up happening all over the place in three by and four by um and And it's really cool, in my opinion. Probably the most rewarding thing that we see as coaches is obviously when a kid gets it, right? But we had a couple of these situations last week where...

There was a defenseman on our team, a senior, Zach Brenfleck, who we're in a three-by rep. And I think like four times in a row, he was in for 30 seconds. If a turnover happens, a new ball was coming right in. And like four times in a row, he was standing on the left side and he was a little too close one time and gets checked.

A little bit too close one time puts it in his right hand because he didn't necessarily want it in his left hand and then gets checked. And then he puts it back in his left hand where he's keeping his space a little bit and he's starting to get it. And the clip was me. Quite literally saying, I'm really glad that you kept making this mistake. But now as you like, let's identify the mistake that you're making.

Let's work at it. And then in 30 days, if you're still making that same mistake, then you're not getting better. Then we're not making any progress. But then all of a sudden we did a more live, you know, real ball type drill.

And he's standing on the lefty pipe. You see him take a two step two steps out because he needed a little bit more time to catch and finish the ball. And it was like a game. It was a you know, it was like a four on three scrap and drill. And he's sitting on the back pipe. He ends up.

giving himself some more space. The ball kind of comes to him across the top and then back down. He catches it and he just throws it in the net lefty and it wins the... wins the game and it was like there's the translation to the small-sided game of making mistakes and being okay us as coaches like being okay to see that mistake but not being okay to not address it and help

show some of the principles of play like spacing. Right. And like anticipation. So, you know, some of those are the moments that I think end up becoming rewarding as a coach when you're doing this, when. You're watching it at first and you're like, this is so bad. We're turning the ball over every single time. We're not finishing the ball. But then they start to fail, fail, fail. And then they learn. All right.

What is going to make this job easier for me? They learn the solution. And now you're putting them in situations where they're making those decisions for themselves instead of what I probably would have said seven years ago was, all right, you need to hit the wall lefty. Yeah. It wasn't the fact that he couldn't catch the ball lefty and put the ball on the net from two yards. It was the fact that he just needed a little bit more time to do so.

so that that's where i think a lot of this shift comes from um and and as you kind of start to steer down um the you know

emphasis on constraints-led approach is you take the skeleton away, you take the no defense away, and you're okay to fail a little bit, and then you have to tweak and teach of how to get them there. Yeah, it's so true. And, you know, depending on your team, you could dial up various principles of play all you want. You could play more. You play faster or slower. You know, you win in faceoffs or you're not. You have great defense.

struggling to score in six on six, you'll figure out what the way you want to play, but figuring out how to do it live, you can't learn spacing relative to defenders and scanning if it's not live.

Because there's no information to take in. So it's really, really cool. My last question for you is how much do you look at individuals and say, okay, this player really needs... something that he's maybe he's not creating advantage as well or maybe he's not capitalizing on him because he's not scanning well enough to give himself the spacing or seeing the next pass.

Have you have you started to take a dive into creating individual constraints within the scope of practice? Yeah, it's a great question. I had one the other day. we had a kid uh you know in that three on two corners drill a couple weeks ago um get checked taking a shot and it took off his whole fingernail so you know as uh maybe this was insensitive but it was like

you shouldn't get checked in a three-on-two. Let's try to move the ball a little bit sooner, and then maybe you're not going to have to worry about getting checked. Um, so he ends up coming back to practice and now, you know, in certain drills and like four by and stuff, if we're in a three on two advantage with a very clear advantage and we can just move the ball fast. as opposed to having to like draw a guy until he's all the way on your hands and you could just move it because someone's open.

You know, a new constraint for him literally that emerged two days ago was if you get checked, you're out of the drill. So now he's working on drawing a guy without actually getting checked and getting too deep. And that's something that. You start to identify what guys' strengths and weaknesses are, and then you can kind of give different little things like that. And I think what's most important when you are going down this road is you can't –

You can't teach them every single thing. You've got to trust that you're putting them in environments to problem solve and make decisions. But you need to know. what you're looking for in those drills like if you again everything kind of rooted in the intention of the drill if the intention of the drill is to move the ball fast we don't necessarily have to draw the defenders so tight to us that they may affect our next pass.

especially dependent on the affordances of the space of the, of the goal of where the defense is. Like it depends on what the environment is. But there are some people that take drawing and dumping too literally. There are some people that have their stick at their hip while they're drawing and dumping, but they're not capable of making a pass from their hip. If they're capable of making a pass from their hip, great.

You can hang it down there. Maybe that's a different way of getting the ball somewhere. But if you still have to get the stick up here to make that pass.

You're going to get checked and now we're going to turn the ball over. So, you know, there's little there's little little things like that that show up. You know, I think that that's that's really no different than. you know, any form of coaching, right? You have, you have a certain guy, an individual who, who you want to be setting more picks and you tell them, all right, in this possession, you've got to.

You know, you've got to you got to set two picks before you're able before the entire team is able to go to the goal. It is on one guy to set these two picks because this is something that he's struggling with or, you know. Sometimes when you give a ton of freedom on offense, you have certain guys who stand in certain areas and they don't leave that area. And it's like, all right, offensively, we are not allowed to go to the goal until that guy yells green.

When he yells green, it is when he is on the other side of the field and that will allow us to then go and be a little bit more aggressive. So, you know, it's, it's, again, it's making sure that you, everything is rooted in the intention. And you're able to identify when those intentions aren't being met.

and trying to be creative about how to adjust within drills. That's why, you know, earlier when you asked the question about like, you know, adjustments, you know, in practice because you see something happening, that is quite literally my job. That is what we do for every single drill. Trying to keep a practice plan as consistent as possible based on the timing, based on maybe not wanting to push too hard. So there may be a time where...

there's 30 seconds left and I want to do that. We just kill it and we do it the next day or something. But, but those, those types of things happen for individuals all of the time. And they happen in.

almost every segment of what we do um and that's where i think for for us as drill designers i think that's where you know we're able to design a drill hopefully get some sort of environment and then we may need to make certain constraints for the whole group maybe we need to make grants for for individuals so that way they are putting themselves in positions that we want them to be in and so much of it too is about variability

you know if that one kid is always on that side it's just like it's just too easy to guard and it's the same thing with some guys just they they have a go-to move that they do all the time and you know you need to do different stuff just from a development perspective as well as from the perspective of just being harder to guard when if you dodge the same way or feed the same way or shoot the same way or stay in the same place um you know that that's probably

You know, a big part of it, I would imagine, of the adjustments that you're making is just to make sure people are doing different things within the scope of principles of play.

Exactly right. And that and that happens all over the place. We're all we're all victims of it. Right. We you know, everybody has has some comfort, you know, whether it's whether it's you or me. I remember for me as a high school attackman, I wanted to I wanted to be back behind the goal. And I had to learn some of the different things about being above the goal and how to play there. And I think that it's no different for a lefty who wants to be on the left side.

If he goes over to the left wing, maybe he pushes the pipe hard. And now we're able to create an advantage in a different way. And I think sometimes it's showing them that, hey, like. We still have these objectives set in the space, creating advantages, attacking advantages, shooting a score. And you need to know yourself. But I think you can do more than what you're doing.

I totally agree. We did a podcast a few years ago where you made that comment, and it really got me thinking about it. Or maybe we were just talking on the phone. I can't remember. But yeah, a lefty going down the wrong side, first of all, they can a lot of times stick that shot. because they're good shooters and they can just hold you up and snap a wrist or five hole or whatever other times that you can get a much sharper pass to x or uh

drift on the backside. You can also skip it through the defense really well. You can be real physical. You may not want to be there all day long, but it's definitely a look that, you know, is going to be good for the offense. And you'll make your way back when the time comes. But I think that variability is so key.

Yeah, and it's for everything, right? Like your ex-attackman, like, you know, if all we can practice, the other team's defender is able to practice you coming off picks from X, and that's the only thing they have to practice. But all of a sudden you're up in the high wing, you're up in the other high wing, you're playing off the ball. Now that defender just has more to have to do to prepare.

And I think being variable is rooted in everything that you do on the lacrosse field because, A, every game is different. Every game flow is different. Every environment is different. Every set could look a little differently. And the better you can be at being different, you're just a little bit, you might be one step ahead of the game and you may be able to get more out of a group. um that if you just if you just put in boxes um you know you mean you may limit them

Um, and, and I think that that's something that I learned from, from, from Bobby Benson. I remember literally my senior year, uh, you know, we had the lefty, uh, you know, attackman Kyle Maher, who would just kind of like. grow roots on the left wing. And, you know, right before six on six possessions, Bobby would throw him on the right wing to force him to...

And he'd end up back on the left wing, but it was after like 35, 35 seconds of him, you know, up pick and slipping or, or, you know, or slipping. you know, slipping a pick through X and then all of a sudden he's on the inside. Now he's coming off a mumbo on the backside and you're like, all right, he just got there by doing four different things, forced his defender to go all the, like the flip is, you know, to, to, to change at all of his roles.

you know, in 30 seconds. And now he may be a little bit more open, you know, so that variability is rooted in everything that we do on the offensive side. And is fun. It's really fun when you start to see guys be like, you know, oh, wow, I can do that. I can do this. And then all of a sudden you start to get a spiral of them maybe seeing some different.

some different solutions to things than maybe a righty would, uh, from that, from that other side of the field because of their experiences, because of their, uh, because of what they're used to. So it, it definitely, it just opens more pathways. Um, I think for, for guys.

And I understand that there's comfortability. I understand you got to do what's best. You know, you got to play your game. But sometimes you limit your game as opposed to, you know, kind of being more creative and unlimiting it.

For sure. And variability becomes a principle of playing in and of itself, offensively and defensively. I mean, we all know that. It's just when you're facing, it's going to be easier to go against. And it definitely becomes incredibly important, like you said, as it relates to player development.

But it also isn't just as a coach when you start creating more variability with changing constraints and making these things happen. As little of a tweak as that is of getting Kyle Marr on the other side, it creates. your ability to make adjustments, both you as the coach and your players as being able to be responsive, which is really what game coaching is all about.

is is being able to have a team that not only do you see it but your team can do it and they were so used to being a adaptable to a new constraint or a new challenge all the time it just it sort of flows back and forth and how much do you feel my last question how much do you feel you've gotten better as a coach from focusing on an ecological approach and creating more variability and really focusing on

creating environments and seeing what happens as opposed to being direct with technique. Yeah, I brought it up earlier. When I look back at the way that I was coaching at Colgate, you know, six, seven years ago and to, and to where, you know, kind of the things that I focus on now. I, I, first of all, just think that you're able to learn faster when you, when you're constantly put.

um in environments um on and off the ball um as opposed to doing pass down pick down shooting um as your way of installing your picks um and i i remember this one this one example um at colgate first of all we had we had a really talented group um and you know

I think any coach can say this because you always want to get better year over year. You always want to change. But, you know, I look back at those years and I limited those guys. We had some really, really talented players. I mean, Brian Minikis, who ended up. up being really, really, really good for Colgate and Georgetown. Nikki Pekovic, a bunch of guys, Sam Cleveland.

Jimmy Cadigan. We had a great group. Griffin Brown. We had a lot of really high-level players. And I think that I was a little bit... too stuck on all right hey we're shooting the ball overhand all right hey we're throwing the ball hard through x all right hey when we move off the ball while we still gave a lot of freedom in our offense the way that i taught it I think was a little bit more limiting than what it is now.

And I look back and I'm like, wow, I wonder what Sam Cleveland could have looked like in an offense that he was kind of given a little bit more leeway to kind of solve some problems. He was like a 6'5 attackman slash middie with a ton of – great skills. um and and again i still gave him freedom um it was just the way that we got there i wish that i had i had i had accelerated that process by in practice focusing on those environments and focus on focusing on giving freedom

And I remember we played Holy Cross. We lost. And it was, you know, when they were playing that backer zone that. that Judd has brought from one place to another and has had so much success with, which as an offensive coordinator and an offense, it tends to put you in a pretzel a little bit because no real men's teams are using it. I remember we had a terrible, terrible day on offense. I think we had like...

anywhere like 12 to 15 turnovers on the day. Cause we got sped up. We didn't have outlets and all this stuff. And I remember my response was, was, was being angry and being like, and I think we did a full 30 minute like shooting session. we just did partner passing for 30 minutes. And I look back and I'm like,

It had nothing to do with our ability to throw those passes. It had everything to do with our decision of timing, our decision to get comfortable, our decision to be outlets, our decision to maybe slow down instead of speed up. Scanning all this stuff. Yeah. So I think that it's definitely changed. And those types of things can still happen while doing it.

ecological approach, right? Like you, there's, there's, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways to skin a cat. I don't know if there's any perfect way by any means, but I do, I do look back and I'm just like, wow, what, you know.

what a difference it's been in our practice fun um and our guys ability to enjoy being out at practice every day in our competitive level um you know and also in their ability to make decisions and read and problem solve, as opposed to me telling them to stand 10 yards across from each other, throw two balls at each other as hard as they could, where.

That's not exactly what the issue was when we didn't have a good day offensively. So, you know, I think as coaches we all – come from a certain place and we're all some of our experiences based on the time that we're there and and you know i think that uh you know i try to as best i can after every year kind of reevaluate what i was doing in practice what i what we did well in games and and talk to my

players about like what they liked, what they didn't like. And you know, I think that all of us are on the, on the pursuit of getting it right. And, and, and I don't know if there's a perfect way. I don't know if there ever will be. But. That's for sure. But the other part of it is...

Had that happened and we had that bad game, maybe we're playing four-by against poles, guys with poles, and now we have to worry about moving our feet a little bit more. And maybe it's just a little bit more fun because there's a score at the end. of it. There's some creativity. And then instead of me putting that pressure on myself and them to catch every single pass perfectly, it teaches them what

the actual root of those decisions or those mistakes were. And I think that that sets them up better than the way I used to do it. You know, it's a constant learning process, I think, for all of us. And this has certainly been one that I'm really grateful for, you know, a lot of people in learning about it. You know, I think most specifically, I know you did a podcast with Tim.

mccormick but um you know right before i got to hopkins while i was at lehigh is when i really started to make this switch um over to more of the decision making the problem solving the constraints led approach um and then But but I didn't necessarily know if I should go all in on it or or not. And I, you know, Tim McCormick got hired at the same time that I did at Hopkins. And, you know, he gave me.

the uh the rob gray book how we learned to move and and we had conversations about drills and and how we do things and how he's done it in the past and it gave me the confidence to uh to to go all in on it uh and and and and and since that you know i'm so grateful for him and Coach Milliman and all the guys at Hopkins for supporting some of that.

somewhat of a leap of faith when you you know you're a new coach and maybe it's a little bit different than than the way that um it was done previously and and you know so You know, you have to be around people that are willing to willing to put themselves out there and willing to have a practice that looks ugly and willing to, you know.

willing to do something that's a little different. And, you know, I think that if you're around people that are, you can, you can really change what a practice feels like and looks like for your players. And, and you as a coach are just going to have more fun while you do it.

100%. John, thanks so much for coming on, man. Best of luck in the 2025 season. Can't wait to watch you guys play, and I'm sure we'll be in touch. Yeah, appreciate it, Jamie. Always fun. Awesome, brother.